Thursday, November 05, 2026
Revenue's climbing and the bank balance still isn't. The real fix usually isn't your price — it's that your marketing never said who you're actually for.
Revenue's up on last year. You should be celebrating. Instead you're staring at the bank balance wondering where it all went, because somewhere between saying yes to every job that came in the door, the margin quietly evaporated. More revenue was supposed to feel like more room to breathe. It feels like running faster for the same result.
Xero's 2026 research found rising costs are cited by 44% of US owners as a leading stress driver (Xero Emotional Tax Return, 2026). But rising costs are only half the story for a lot of owners. The other half is saying yes to everything, because nobody's ever written down, in one sentence, what this business is actually best at.
I've founded or co-founded nine companies, and the ones that grew their margin, not just their turnover, all had one thing in common: they knew exactly what they wouldn't do.
It feels risky to turn work away when revenue already feels tight. So owners say yes to the client outside their specialty, the rush job that blows the schedule, the discount to win the deal that was never going to be profitable anyway. Each yes feels harmless alone. Together, they're exactly why revenue climbs and margin doesn't.
Jim Collins studied what separated genuinely great companies from merely good ones, and found they could all answer one question with total clarity: where do three things overlap?
Where those three genuinely overlap is where this business should be saying yes. Everywhere else is where the margin is quietly leaking out.
"Kevin is an absolute powerhouse! He doubled our business's profits in the first month alone with lots more of his recommendations still to be rolled out."
— Curtis Hacon, Give A Sh!t
One of the businesses I founded, Sign60, was built around a single-sentence promise: a signpost up in 60 seconds. Not every kind of signage. Not every kind of install. One sharp overlap between what we could genuinely be fastest at, what actually made money, and what the team cared about doing well. We ran it against a 100-day action plan so the focus didn't drift back to "yes to everything" within a month of writing it down.
Writing the Hedgehog sentence is the easy part. Saying no to the next client who doesn't fit it, while the bank balance is still tight, takes a kind of nerve most owners don't have alone — because the downside of saying yes feels immediate, and the upside of saying no only shows up months later in the margin line. That gap is exactly where having someone outside the business, holding you to the sentence you wrote, earns its keep.
This isn't for you if you'd rather keep every type of job coming through the door than risk a quiet month while you refocus. It is for owners ready to trade some revenue for a business that's actually worth running.
More revenue was never the actual goal. A business that's good at one thing, and paid properly for it, is.
If you've never written down the one sentence this business should say yes to, that's the first thing we'd build together.
Thursday, October 08, 2026
Most SME strategy problems are not thinking problems, they are seeing problems. Here is the one-page model that catches the two mistakes that quietly kill most growing businesses before they show up in the bank account.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Four pillars, one real constraint and a 90-day plan. Here is how the Simple-Growth System works, plus a 45-minute test you can run this week.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
When you are surrounded by your industry, it is hard to see the wood for the trees. Here is why an outside perspective finds growth moves insiders miss, and how US owners can use it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Small businesses grow at half the rate of big ones, and it is not about budget. Techaisle's 2026 global survey reveals why depth of relationships beats contact count, and how to build your own Dream 10 this week.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Rising revenue feels like proof the business is winning. If your margin is quietly shrinking at the same time, you are growing broke. Here is the three-line check that catches it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
January feels like the obvious month to commit to a coach. It is actually the worst one. Here is why the owners who get the most out of coaching start in November instead.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Wrong hires are now costing Australian SMEs an estimated 7.3 billion dollars a year. The mistake almost never happens in the interview room. Here is where it actually happens.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Somewhere in your pipeline right now is a buyer whose budget has to be spent before their financial year ends. Here is how to find them before a competitor does.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Most SME marketing budget goes to whichever channel the owner already knows, never the one that would actually work best. Here is the simple test that finds it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Most strategic plans fail quietly, from an optimism nobody questioned out loud. Here is the 20-minute pre-mortem that finds the weak spot before you commit a dollar to it.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
What a business coach for an NZ food, beverage or FMCG brand should do: price waterfall, real constraint, velocity story and a 90-day plan.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
73% of small business owners feel more confident than ever, yet 57% have flat or falling revenue. Here is the real constraint behind the gap, and the 15-minute test that exposes it.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Most SME owners know their cost per click. Almost none know their true cost to win a customer, because the real costs live in four different spreadsheets nobody has ever combined.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
A pleasant weekly chat and a structured coaching session can look identical from the outside. Here's exactly what should be happening in the room if the second one is real.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Most SME task lists have no visible connection to the goal on the whiteboard. OKRs fix that gap in three simple steps, without turning your week into a spreadsheet exercise.